1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the fields of telecommunication, networking, and on-line information delivery. More specifically, the present invention relates to an enhanced approach for facilitating telephony services for a user.
2. Background Information
Advances in microprocessor, networking, and telecommunication technologies have led to the development of large scale public networks, such as the Internet. In turn, it has led to the development of packet based telephony (also known as voice over IP, or VOIP, where IP stands for the Internet Protocol, referring to a "variant" of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)). Emergence of packet based telephony has led to the provision of "free" long distance calls, although call quality, and therefore user experience, remains a challenge, as packet delivery over public networks, such as the Internet, is on a "best effort" basis. As a result, delays and packet lost occur frequently. To improve call quality and user experience, various technologies have emerged to "fuse" packet based telephony with the traditional switch based telephone network, Public Switching Telephone Network or PSTN. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,774, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, disclosed an approach for a collection of packet based telephony bridge servers to select among themselves, the "best" bridge server to transition a packet based phone call back onto the traditional PSTN. As a further example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/818,321, also assigned to the assignee of the present invention, disclosed an approach to completely transition a packet based phone call back to a traditional PSTN analog call.
The challenge to improve user experience of packet based telephony service continues and never end. Thus, additional innovations to further enhance user experience are always desired.